A finished Pyramid Etui!

OK, if you’re expecting to see my Etui sitting here all finished in this post you’re seriously delusional – you might have to check back in about 6 months time teehee … but I just HAVE to give a great big plug for my CA Wells stitching buddy Georgie, who has completed this masterpiece in all its stunning glory already! Georgie, you are most definitely my hero!! And I know where to come when I come unstuck months in the future when I finally get my stitching completed 😉

Today I had a good day at work … yesterday was a shocker, and I had to put up with a senior member of staff in head office going off her nut at me before I left work. Without going into details I have to say I left work fuming, with steam coming out of my ears! It takes an awful lot to send me into ‘seething mode’, but she managed it yesterday. Part of my job on the Hotline is to problem-solve and fix errors etc … yesterday I was copping it from the customer’s side of things, then copping it worse from an internal customer’s side of things … you could have fried a couple of eggs on my cheeks, as they were roaring hot (a good sign things are NOT going well LOL). I came home and poured a big tumbler of bourbon and L&P and sat sipping it at 2.43pm … luckily this is not the norm, and I’m not about to become an afternoon lush haha. Today, however, I just had to speak to this woman and bring the issue out in the open – we had a very open discussion how it makes the job so much harder when we cop abuse from their department, when we’re just trying to rectify an error we’ve made … I hate conflict, but I also won’t just sit there and take it when I feel strong enough about the issues concerned, and I’ll most definitely stand up for myself … the end result is that we cleared the air, she apologised that it was never meant personally etc, and we’re back to being good work colleagues again.

You’d never have recognised me in my teens – I wouldn’t have said boo to a ghost! Mum said the best thing that ever happened to me was working behind the bar of a rugby club in Auckland, as it really made me come out of my shell and stand up for myself. Perhaps sometimes it taught me a little TOO well 😉 Normally quite placid, I will snap if my buttons are pushed enough. A poor woman copped my wrath in Officeworks last week. You may remember I felt pretty down when I got my car repair bill, well I drove straight to Officeworks after picking my car up for some overdue photocopying I’d been wanting to do – I’d just settled myself in at the copier when a woman came in and stood in front of the photo printing machine next to me. She asked if I knew if someone was using the machine – my answer, sorry but I don’t know. She continues, well did you see someone standing here? My answer, sorry but I literally just walked in ahead of you, so I didn’t see anything. Personally I think they were perfectly fine and appropriate answers. As my copier had run out of paper in one of the trays, I walked off to see the clerk for a refill so I could start my copying … the woman started muttering as I walked past “well, you’re not very friendly are you?” ……..

At this point you could say I went from marginally upset and depressed to extremely irate in 0.5 seconds flat! LOL. Most people would just take a deep breath and walk away … not me! Let’s just say she picked the wrong me, on the wrong day! I stopped and said “I beg your pardon?” She repeated the statement, well you’re hardly very friendly, are you? I could feel the lava bubbling up on Mt Shackles, and it was getting close to overflowing down the sides … I couldn’t help myself but to snap back … actually you have no idea what sort of person I am … I just walked in ahead of you, and answered your questions with the appropriate answers, I am just standing here minding my own business and doing my own thing, I am NOT an employee of Officeworks and I am NOT the bl**dy help desk … I’m sorry if that deems me as being unfriendly, mutter mutter mutter. I tell you what, though, it got me out of that slightly depressive phase hahaha. I told Mum the story when I spoke to her on the phone later that day, and she said she could just picture it – I said, yeah, you would have left the store in embarrassment LOL 😉

Hmmm, sorry, I hadn’t expected to waffle on so … do you think perhaps my blogging mojo is coming back too? I haven’t waffled on so much in ages!! Anyway, seeing as I don’t have any need to be lushful this afternoon, I thought I just might catch up on some TV programmes I’ve had taped for a while and … wait for it … start my rotation stitching again!! 😀

Yes, you heard it here, folks … the rotation is back in the building! I actually put Egyptian Garden Mandala on my new 17″ Q-snaps last night in readiness, and it’s sitting here propped up against my stitching chair begging me to come over and spend some time with it … With any luck that’ll get me back into my normal projects again and I can start getting some of these darned BAP’s finished! I have to admit, though, I was tempted to start with rotation slot #13 … free choice LOL … but then I figure there’s another one coming shortly in slot #3 so I haven’t got too long to wait (then I think it’s Snapperville here I come!) 😉

If you’re lucky you might even see a progress piccie by the end of the week … maybe … although it’s Bordeaux’s night coming up so that might hit the blog first! Rightio, enough waffling on … it’s time to stitch! 😀

(BTW, I think you deserve a medal if you managed to get this far in reading … your stamina would earn you Gold, I think! LOL)

Well, since you left such a lovely comment on my blog too, here I go: I’m sorry, but I laughed my socks off at your story about the woman at the copy shop. It reminds me of something I experienced, too. I had just arrived in Wales. At the supermarket, some old lady comes up to me at the veg section and says ‘These potatoes are really easy to scrape, aren’t they?’ I had no idea what she was on about, so I said ‘Excuse me?’ She: ‘These potatoes are really easy to scrape, aren’t they?’ Me: ‘I’m sorry, but I always peel my potatoes, so I really have no idea.’ She:’You just don’t care, do you?’ she asked dejectedly, and wandered off. Sigh… Are stitchers the only sane people on earth?

You go girl. (I have always wanted to write that haha) One of the hardest lessons I ever learnt when I first started working at the mere age of 17. Do not let people walk all over you, stand up for yourself. The lady at the copier machine had it coming.

I always find that putting my Medieval Town Mandala on the Q Snaps is GUARANTEED to get me in stitchy mode, lol. There’s something quite special happens when the silks get stretched to limit, and it starts to call to me, lol.

Strange lady, what on earth was she thinking? Thanks for the news re the Inspirations with the Lefkara articles in it, I have ordered this – it will be interesting, I think. Actually I did a class with Christine Bishop years ago, it was reticella, so I know she is really into whitework (like me, also!) Lefkara is defintely my favourite village in Cyprus.